Friday, January 4, 2013

Twelve Ideas (and one bonus) for Getting Started with Twitter in the Classroom

Many educators disregard Twitter as a narcissistic
fad used to mark one’s personal movement through the day. How could such a tool
be used effectively for education? While many limit the use of Twitter to self-proclamation
of what they ate for breakfast, educators can instead use it as a flexible
forum for promoting student engagement and nurturing development of a learning
community.

If you are curious about using Twitter to enhance your class
but unsure of how to begin, the following suggestions offer you ways to ease
into using this tool. For those of you who are completely new to the Twitter
scene, check out Twitter
Tips for Newbies for basic information.

Here are twelve easy-to-implement ideas on how to use
Twitter in your class:

1.Class
AccountsCreate a Twitter account for your class that
all students can “follow”. Tweets to this account will display on each
student’s Twitter page. (Each student will need to have an account as well.) Students
can tweet notes, insights, and questions about course content to this account
for all followers to view. You can respond to student tweets as well as tweet assignments,
announcements, and encouragement to the class yourself.

2.Class
Introduction Tweets
Collaborative learning works best when social connections are established.
Build these social connections among students with an ice-breaker activity.
Assign students to tweet their autobiographies as an introduction. You can set a
scope for the content such as tweeting about their prior experience with the
course content or you can let them write freestyle. The 140 character limit
will help them get to the core of what they’d like to share about themselves
without rambling.

3.Pre-class
QuestionsBefore each class session, post a question to spark interest in the
upcoming topic. Link the topic to current events, post a problem or puzzle that
can be solved with the upcoming lesson, juxtapose an element of the content
against an accepted assumption, or cite an astounding statistic based on the
content. These tweets do not require a response, but you may be surprised at
the interest you build before the lesson ever begins.

4.Class Announcements and RemindersTweets can be a handy addition to the emails and course reminders about
major assignments or upcoming exams that you already send out. Using Twitter,
you can quickly alert students to changes in due dates, corrections in
assignments, or class cancelations. When students are comfortable checking
Twitter regularly, these tweets will be a non-intrusive method for conveying the
latest news.

5.Links to Supplemental SitesBuild a resource library by tweeting links to sites that augment the
current course content and encourage your students to do the same. Twitter is a
great place for all to post their reactions to the sites as well. (Check out http://linkyy.com/ for abbreviating long URLs to
make them more Twitter-friendly.)

6.Supplemental DiscussionsEnhance the class discussions, or discussion forums, with a more informal
discussion on Twitter. Students can pose questions about the content on Twitter
that they were too shy to bring up in class or that didn’t occur to them during
a lesson.

7.Resource for Resources Students can follow professional organizations, museums, or experts in the
field to access links to cutting-edge publications on topics for their
research.

8.Research ForumStudents can use Twitter to conduct their own research. They can tweet a
link to a free survey site such as SurveyMonkey
using specific hashtags
to gather poll data from a wide sample. You can also use this approach to
solicit anonymous feedback from students during the course.

9.Small Group PresentationsWhether your students work in small groups virtually or in the classroom,
they can present their group’s results using Twitter. This format works
particularly well when each group explores one topic within a whole and tweets
summaries to the class Twitter account.

10.Personify ContentCreate an account for the course content, a historical figure, or a
fictional character. Students can then tweet from that perspective. Writing as
Adam the Atom or as Albert Einstein nurtures creative thinking and can also provide
a forum for students to tweet anonymously.

11.Connect with ExpertsAssign students to find Twitter
handles for experts in the field. These experts can illuminate content and
help them explore new areas. Students can pose questions and maybe even receive
a personalized response. Such interactions connect the content with current
thinking in the field.

12.Twitter EssayWant to see if students understand the essence of a topic? Assign a Twitter essay. With just
140 characters, the student must analyze, evaluate, summarize, and condense
content. Such an exercise promotes critical thinking and retention.

Bonus: If you want to assess your student’s Twitter postings, you can use this Twitter
Rubric as a guide for meeting quality standards.

You do not need to be a social media expert to
use Twitter in the classroom. You can discover its value along with your
students. Your participation can model the wise use of public social media and
help guide them in the very important skill of developing a positive digital
footprint. It can give the shy students a voice, nurture personal interaction
with the content, and connect learners with others inside the class and outside
in the field. First published on Elearning Industry.